There are some writings from the second part of the 18th century in which you can find that Dutch persons were playing correspondence chess. For instance in the Sämtliche Werke of Jean Paul Richter (1783). Much more detail can be found in the book “Tweehonderdvijftig jaar correspondentieschaak in Nederland”, written by Leo C. M. Diepstraten (in 1991), who at that time was the President of the NBC. In the book he states that the oldest correspondence chess game in the world of which the moves are known is the one which was played in the Netherlands between Friedrich Wilhelm von Mauvillon, lieutenant-colonel in the Dutch army in The Hague, and one of his (unknown) brother-officers in Breda. This game was played in 1804. For this article I have thankfully drawn on this book.

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In an over-the-board tournament in Arnhem in 1858, which took 2 days, there was a very special ruling: unfinished games had to be ended afterwards by correspondence chess. In his book Leo Diepstraten records many CC games played in the second half of the 19th century between cities (also international games) and between individual players. After the foundation of the Nederlandsche Schaakbond in 1873 it took until 1899 before a first official correspondence chess tournament was organised by its magazine “Het Tijdschrift” with 20 participants. Other tournaments followed in 1910, 1916, 1920 and 1924. From 1927 on, groups were started on a continuous basis. The moves of the White players had to be posted not later than the 1st and the 16th day of the month, the Black moves at the latest on the 8th and the 23rd. Strong Dutch over-the-board players like the brothers Jonkheer Arnold and Dr. Dirk van Foreest, Jan te Kolsté, Max Marchand, Dr. Adolf Olland and Mr. Gerard Oskam were regular participants of these tournaments.

In the international scene at that time a Dutchman played an important role in the foundation of the IFSB (Internationale FernschachBund). This association was founded in Berlin on December 2, 1928 by John W. Keemink from Hilversum and his two German fellows Dr. Rudolf Dührssen and Hans-Werner von Massow.

The first Dutch championship was organised in 1934 and Dr. T. ten Kate won it. Until 1999 he has had 51 successors. Among them there is only one player who won the Dutch championship three times: the first Dutch grandmaster Kor Mulder van Leens Dijkstra, who won the title in 1946, 1947 and 1948. Kor was a very remarkable player: he was a potato millionaire, who had the phobia that he would die at the moment he would leave his own property. So he was condemned to play correspondence chess. He also had a big collection of all kind of cards, sent to him, with nice stamp-sized coloured pieces of pictures from brochures and so on, which were regularly stamped by the postal services and for which he has not been surcharged.

I have developed a measuring-staff with which it would be possible to find out which player could be crowned as “Mister XYZ tournament” (fill in the name of a special kind of correspondence chess tournament which is organised once and again). With this measuring-staff (defined as: the sum of the number of scored points, the number of played games and the percentage score in these games) it can be calculated that Mister Dutch Championship is Maarten Etmans. The top five players of this eternal list are:

1. Maarten Etmans (103½ points; 231 games; 45%; Total 379½)

2. H. G. J. Hölscher (84½ points, 153 games, 55%; Total 292½)

3. Dr. J. W. A. van Kol (67½ points; 121 games; 56%; Total 244½)

4. Richard Hendriks (63½ points; 111 games; 57%; Total 231½)

5. Ronald Weijerstrass (53½ points; 84 games; 64%; Total 201½)

In the 1960s the stronger Dutch correspondence chess players were not satisfied with the way their international interests were treated by the organisers of the national tournaments. And so they founded the Nederlandse Bond van Correspondentieschakers, on November 19, 1966 in Arnhem. The first board was formed by internationally well-known players and officials: H. J. Mostert, Berthold Perfors, Henk Sarink, Dick Smit and J. Zaagman.

NBC not only organises the Dutch championship, but also a lot of tournaments: promotional tournaments, cup tournaments, senior and veteran championships, team championships, balance and thematic tournaments. And moreover many team matches with all kind of interesting opponents. Schaakschakeringen is the name of the magazine of the NBC. It is now published six times a year.

Achievements

Dutch officials have always played an important role in the history of the organisation of international CC. As already stated, John W. Keemink was one of the founders of the IFSB. After the Second World War J. Zaagman was one of the founders of the ICCA, the successor of IFSB and also the predecessor of ICCF. The first Tournament Director of ICCF was H. ter Braak. He was Director from 1952 until 1967. From 1964 until 1995 Dick Smit was a member of the Telechess commission, being the President of that commission from 1980 until 1995. From 1967 until 1996 H. J. Mostert was one of the most prominent members of the ICCF Presidium. After he had been Vice-President and General-Secretary he was elected as ICCF President at the ICCF Congress in 1987 in Bloemendaal, near to his residence Haarlem. Finally Nol van ‘t Riet, in his role of European Tournament Office Director (1983–91), started the computerisation of ICCF. Moreover he also constructed the ICCF Rating system (1980–87).

Henk J. Mostert

Henk J. Mostert (pictured above), not only contributed extensively to the organisation of the ICCF, but also to the NBC. Under his guidance as Tournament Director the number of members grew from 200 to 1,500 in the mid-1980s. Quite a number of these Dutch players have got possibilities to score master and grandmaster norms in all kind of international tournaments. Although it is mainly the individual merit of titled players themselves, it is through the contribution of H.J. Mostert that the Netherlands has so many titled players and so many participants in ICCF events. At the ICCF Congresses he excelled for many years, and also in two other ways: as translator (from any language into any other desired language) and in using his own sense of humour to solve all kind of problems (or better: in preventing all kind of possible problems!). Sadly, he died this year and an appreciation appears elsewhere in this book.

Of course there have been many Dutch players who achieved remarkable results. In the finals of a World Championship the following Dutch players have been playing: Theo van Scheltinga and P. van ‘t Veer (1st Final), Cor Jansen (6th), And Peter Boll (14th). Gert Timmerman was the first Dutch World Champion (15th) and Joop van Oosterom won the World Championship title twice (18th and 21st ). In the nineties Walter Mooij has won the 44th European Championship. In 1995, one of these players, Gert Timmerman, took the first place of the ICCF rating list with a rating of 2725, and has kept it until the latest list. Asked for his best game ever he gave his game against Ove Ekebjaerg (DEN) in the jubilee tournament NBC 25 years. “A fantastic game”, as he wrote in the tournament book.

International tournaments

NBC organised several international invitational tournaments in which ICCF titles could be achieved. Below you’ll find the final results of these tournaments.